


too much at stake (too late to change)

by apatternedfever



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Don't Ask Don't Tell, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Iron Man 1, M/M, Not Beta Read, Rhodey-centric, canon compliant character in danger and other character worrying about their death, specifically that one where you see in color when you meet your soulmate, through an AU lens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 06:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2458925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatternedfever/pseuds/apatternedfever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost nobody knows that Tony Stark is Rhodey's soulmate. It makes everything harder, once he gets kidnapped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	too much at stake (too late to change)

**Author's Note:**

> There's a post that goes around tumblr regularly, dicussing a version of a soulmates au where you see in black and white until you meet your soulmate, and then you see in color; when they die, you go back to seeing in black and white. That's the basic premise here.
> 
> Title from Dessa's _Matches to Paper Dolls_. Not beta read, so if you see any mistakes, please do point them out to me.

"I’m just your babysitter," Rhodey says, but frustration is fading farther into fondness every second. It’s hard to stay mad at Tony, even when he every right to be frustrated with him, and it doesn’t take much convincing for Rhodey to have a drink. Doesn’t take more than one drink before he’s distracted from his frustration at Tony by frustration that there’s a table between them.

(The first time he got distracted by Tony Stark was the first time he met him, and he was too busy being fascinated at the inexplicable, impossible, and utterly overwhelming change that came as he stared at the boy in front of him that it took a minute before the why came kicking in. Rhodey had promptly begun internally freaking out, because his soulmate was a kid and a guy and rich and pretty much famous and generally nothing he was expecting they would be, but he’s never really stopped being fascinated by Tony, or by the colors that came with him.)

This, as much as anything else, is why Tony always make sure they take his jet, and not any flight accommodation the US military would offer. Tony makes sure the employees on the jet are absolutely discrete, absolutely loyal, and more often than not they intimately understand the predicament the two of them are in. So Rhodey doesn’t have to keep his distance; they end up tangled together on the couch, kissing and occasionally halfway sitting up to grab the bottle again.

"You could be so much more," he mumbles into Tony’s shoulder at one point, mind too clouded with booze and Tony to stop and phrase it a way that can’t be taken wrong. Tony just kisses him, and he’s kind of glad — they don’t really need to stop and have this argument again, but he wants to get it through to him, too. There’s so much in Tony that he knows nobody else can see, that he doesn’t even think Tony can see, and he wants Tony to be able to see himself through Rhodey’s eyes, just for a day, just for a minute. Just to know what he really means.

*

As far as the military is aware — because it’s easier to fake a story than fake not seeing colors, and anyway his ability to see colors is an advantage he can’t, in good conscience, ignore — he’s one of the small but statistically significant portions of the population whose colors arrived in the middle of the crowd. Usually (exceptions are known) just passing your soulmate at a distance isn’t enough to trigger it, but brushing against them in a crowd is — first touch, first eye contact, and first time hearing your soulmate’s voice are the common ways for it to happen. Some people don’t actually realize it; it’s never quite possibly to explain color to anyone who’s still black and white.

Some people have it happen in the middle of a crowd, don’t recognize it immediately, and then have difficulty locating their soulmate when they register what did happen.

As far as the military is aware, Rhodey is still searching for his unknown soulmate, and has yet to make contact with anyone likely.

As far as the military is aware, Tony Stark is just a long-time friend.

Rhodey hates it, but you do what you have to do.

*

It’s almost a relief, to be told to get in the other vehicle, because even if all he really wants to do is pull Tony into his side and wrap an arm around him, he’s not sure he can do it in a way that doesn’t scream 'not just friends'. It’s not always easy keeping cover when Tony’s right there, especially not when they’re somewhere a little more secluded. So he doesn’t argue.

They get ambushed. Tony gets kidnapped.

Rhodey refuses to sleep for days, injuries or no injuries, for the fear of waking up to a black and white world.

*

One week passes. Rhodey still sees in color. Rhodey keeps looking.

One month passes. Rhodey still sees in color. Rhodey keeps looking.

Two months pass. Rhodey still sees in color. Rhodey keeps looking.

It’s around then that they start talking to him about the likelihood of Tony still being alive, about the career he’s sacrificing to chase ghosts of information for a man it’s probably too late to save, about how much they need him to get his head back on straight. He listens, politely, and then refuses, just as politely.

When they ask him why he keeps trying, his throat goes dry, and all he can do is mutter something half-assed about Tony being a valuable hostage and the odds being higher than they’re estimating, knowing very well that they already took who Tony was into consideration. It’s a relief when they assume he just doesn’t want to admit that his friend might be dead and stop asking for a little while.

Rhodey still sees in color, so he keeps looking. It’s as simple as that, and if he explained, it would be easier to argue that Tony’s still out there and they should keep looking. But he can’t explain, or he won’t be able to look anymore, so they wonder why they should believe there’s anything out there to find.

It’s a rock and a hard place and it’s enough to make him want to scream.

Three months pass. Rhodey still sees in color. Rhodey keeps looking.

*

There are documented cases of people convincing themselves about being in color versus still being black and white. Most of them are people who never came into color, but have convinced themselves they did; most of them do so because they’re fixated on a specific person, utterly convinced they’re their soulmate despite lack of evidence. Very few people have gotten color and convinced themselves they didn’t, but it's happened; most of the cases have been people with abusive other halves, who, after getting out of the relationship, refused to believe that could have actually been their soulmate.

In both cases, the difficulty describing a world with color to those without it help feed the belief; it’s so hard to explain it, so how can you really prove they are or aren’t seeing it? They ignore the fact that the standardized tests for color vision almost never fail in their conviction.

Some widowers convince themselves they’re still seeing in color after the colors are lost again. It’s the least likely conviction to come around, and usually the most likely to be temporary, but it does happen.

Rhodey finds a test online and takes it every time he gets back from another failed attempt at rescue, just in case. He tells himself he’s not deluding himself, and ignores the way his stomach ties itself in knots waiting for the result.

Then he gets ready to look again.

*

When they find Tony, Rhodey is surrounded by people who don’t know, so he can’t say anything he really wants to. He can’t even bring himself to say ‘I love you’, something a man could easily want to say to his presumed-dead best friend of decades; too many years of being rigidly careful keep the words back.

But he can drop to his knees, and pull Tony into him, and he says, “I got you,” knowing Tony will understand how much there really is in those three words.

He holds on, his arm around Tony and Tony’s face in his shoulder, and for the first time in three months, he closes his eyes without wondering what the world will look like when he opens them again.


End file.
